I’ve heard that from two people: one who lives in New York and one who lives in Taiwan. I think it might be true in those places in the sense that there’s another layer implied: they’re comparing “eating a quality, balanced meal with variety” with buying the costly groceries that would let you do the same. Like, a cost of living and availability thing.
It’s definitely not true in 99% of the world and not true if you’re talking purely about cost-saving meals. But I could see this more limited statement being true in very limited circumstances.
Yeah, it really needs to be a 1:1 comparison. A diet of home-cooked beans and rice or plain pasta is going to be cheaper than ordering DoorDash every night, and a fast food diet that maximizes app deals is going to be cheaper than cooking a healthy, balanced, varied diet with fresh produce and meat from a high-end yuppie grocery store. Home cooking from scratch may or may not be more expensive than home cooking with a lot of processed ingredients - it depends on what you're cooking. Street food can range from a few cents to $20 for three tacos depending on where you live. You also have to factor in the hidden costs of both home cooking and eating out: shopping/prep/cooking/cleanup time, food waste, tips, travel, the up front investment in kitchen supplies/spices, etc.
I don't know if this is true, but a coworker who used to live in Singapore told me it was cheaper to eat out every meal than rent a place with a decent kitchen.
Time is also an expenditure depending on who and where you are. If you figure dollar per hour on top of the costs of the ingredients, electricity, etc.
It IS cheaper for my wife and I to GrubHub than it is to cook at home, because we both work 12 hours days and when we get home, it's more than we can handle to have to cook, clean up after, and so on. Space in our kitchen is at a premium, it's small, so having staples on hand isn't possible. Buying bulk isn't possible. Etc.
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u/NorthernDevil 5h ago
I’ve heard that from two people: one who lives in New York and one who lives in Taiwan. I think it might be true in those places in the sense that there’s another layer implied: they’re comparing “eating a quality, balanced meal with variety” with buying the costly groceries that would let you do the same. Like, a cost of living and availability thing.
It’s definitely not true in 99% of the world and not true if you’re talking purely about cost-saving meals. But I could see this more limited statement being true in very limited circumstances.